Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning both use the back-shoulder throw, a play that has changed the NFL's passing game

Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers have excelled at executing the back-shoulder throw.

On a second-and-10 late in the Green Bay Packers’ victory over the Giants last month, Aaron Rodgers threw a 21-yard pass high and behind Jordy Nelson’s back shoulder. Nelson saw it coming, so he spun around and leaped to grab it. Will Blackmon didn’t leave the ground until the ball was in Nelson’s hands.

Many were wondering why in the world Blackmon, signed less than two weeks earlier and years removed from his last play as a cornerback in a game, was on the field in the first place.

The way Blackmon tells it, it wouldn’t have mattered if he was Darrell Green, Deion Sanders or Darrelle Revis.

“I believe that one was uncoverable,” Blackmon said the other day. “He threw it 8 feet in the air, outside. Even Jordy had to jump for it.

“It’s just a tough play, especially when a team is really good at it.”

The back-shoulder throw.

It’s been a part of football for at least 23 years but has only recently become integral to every team’s offense. It’s the bane of a cornerback’s existence, punishing good coverage and taking advantage of how they’re instructed to stay in front of receivers.

It can eventually set up the deep ball over the top of a rattled defensive back, as was the case when Nelson got behind Blackmon for a 27-yard completion on the Packers’ winning drive later in the fourth quarter of that Dec. 4 game.

And with Rodgers and his receivers executing it as well as anyone in the NFL — that includes Eli Manning, who’s only getting more accurate with the throw — it’s a play that will have defensive backs on edge and off-balance this afternoon when the Giants and Packers meet in an NFC divisional round game at Lambeau Field.

“We’re running full speed with our back to them and he knows it’s coming back shoulder. It’s very difficult for us,” Giants safety Deon Grant said. “There’s a way to defend it and Coach (Perry Fewell) is doing a great job this week as far as coaching the guys. Hopefully, guys buy into it.”

Just like NFL offenses bought into the back-shoulder throw — more than two decades after one team perfected it.

A few years ago, while with the Seattle Seahawks, Grant was on the sideline during a practice watching Matt Hasselbeck deliver perfect back-shoulder throws to Nate Burleson and Deion Branch.

“That used to be my best throw,” said the Seahawks’ radio color commentator, standing beside Grant.

That could be said of former NFL quarterback Warren Moon. Back in the late ’80s, with the Houston Oilers’ Run-and-Shoot offense stressing “choice” routes determined by the defense’s coverage, the back-shoulder throw made (arguably) its first appearance in the NFL.

“We called it the ‘fade stop.’ It was a big part of our offense,” Moon said by phone late last week. “It’s funny people are just talking about it now. They didn’t notice it very much because they probably thought I was throwing a bad ball and the receiver was making a good adjustment.”

Actually, it was a good ball — and a good sell job by the receiver.

The idea was to make the defensive back, playing tight “press” or “bump-and-run” man coverage, think Moon was about to throw a fade over his head. As the defender’s momentum took him upfield and he turned his back to the quarterback, the receiver would look to see a pass being delivered behind him — at his back shoulder.

All of this was taught by Oilers head coach Jerry Glanville and assistants June Jones and Kevin Gilbride. It was practiced and called, both in the huddle and at the line with signals from Moon, such as a tug on the jersey or a pat on the helmet.

So while former Ravens coach Brian Billick says “a lot of people are trying to Al Gore it and convince you they invented it and the internet,” the old Oilers have arguably the best claim to starting the back-shoulder throw.

“Oh yeah, we’ve been doing it, unfortunately 23 years ago,” Gilbride, now the Giants’ offensive coordinator, said in suggesting he feels old. “So it’s been done for a long time.”

Still, in a copycat league — the 2008 Miami Dolphins ran the wildcat and nearly every other team was doing it weeks later — a two-decade gulf is unusual, and indicative of being well ahead of the curve.

• • •

Andrew Mills/The Star-LedgerEli Manning practices with the Giants this past week in East Rutherford.

Poor Marcus Gilchrist. The San Diego Chargers cornerback was on Nelson’s hip at the 8-yard line.

And then, with Gilchrist running toward the end zone, Nelson adjusted to the throw low and behind him, caught it while hitting the ground and then rolled untouched into the end zone for a touchdown, all while Gilchrist’s momentum never stopped taking him away from Nelson.

The NFL’s emphasis on illegal contact more than 5 yards from the line of scrimmage following the Patriots’ defensive backs practically mugging the Colts’ receivers in the 2003 AFC Championship Game necessitated even more aggressive coverage coming off the line. Corners have to get a good jam to set themselves up for better coverage on downfield routes by staying “on top” of the receiver instead of trailing the play, which allows a quarterback to lead the receiver.

Offenses eventually found a way to beat such tight coverage.

“It’s a great antidote for people that are bringing pressure and you have to get rid of the ball quickly and you have a DB that’s up pressed and you turn his back,” Gilbride said. “Then, you hopefully have gotten good enough at it that you throw it in a location, a position that really only your receiver can make a play.

“It’s as difficult of a play for a defender as any play that has to be made.”

Giants backup quarterback David Carr says it’s actually one of the easier throws, because “you don’t have to throw it super hard and get it there before the DB. You just have to put a little touch on it to where your guy has a chance to make the play.”

Moon says the passer should err to the high side — but not too high — and to the outside.

“You try to hit him in the back while he’s running and he’s going to make the adjustment,” Moon said. “The key is not so much for the quarterback; it’s the receiver who has to sell the fade part of it.”

It also helps to throw to a bigger target because they have the greater wingspan, so they can reach back further. In the ’90s, the Vikings made use of the back-shoulder throw with Cris Carter (6-3), Jake Reed (6-3) and Randy Moss (6-5), though it wasn’t called or coached. It just happened.

“You could put it anywhere within reach of Cris Carter and you were going to get a reception,” said Billick, Minnesota’s offensive coordinator from 1994-98 and now an analyst for the NFL Network and Fox Sports. “So it’s been around for a long time but it’s been taken to a whole other level. … Virtually all the top quarterbacks do it to a degree.”

Nine plays into the 2011 regular season, Rodgers threw to Greg Jennings’ back shoulder for a 7-yard touchdown as Saints cornerback Patrick Robinson slipped and had his face planted in the end zone.

What offseason? What lockout? What rushed training camp?

“Timing. It’s all about timing,” Rodgers said the week after that game, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If you’re good with your timing then you have a good chance. It’s tough to defend. But if you’re late and the defender turns his head, it can be an easy play for him.

“It’s a tool I think you need to use sparingly.”

Rodgers and the Packers seem to know exactly when to use it, even without communicating.

Unlike Moon, Rodgers doesn’t use hand signals to his receivers. Nelson, Jennings and Donald Driver have been working with Rodgers for four full seasons now, so their communication is key.

“Their chemistry is unbelievable,” Grant said. “You have guys who have been in that system their whole career and you have a guy like Aaron who’s … had so much time to get that particular throw down pat.”

Of course, let’s not sell the guy short on the other sideline today. Manning throws a pretty good back-shoulder ball as well. He first developed it with the 6-5 Plaxico Burress, who adjusted to balls in flight as well as any receiver his size. In fact, Burress caught a back-shoulder throw for 18 yards to set up a touchdown in the third quarter of the NFC Championship Game at Lambeau four years ago.

After being beaten over the top for much of the first half, Packers cornerback Al Harris was 3 yards upfield and turned the wrong way when Burress caught that perfect ball from Manning.

“Kevin does an excellent job teaching from a receiver perspective as well as a quarterback perspective,” said ESPN analyst Tim Hasselbeck, Manning’s backup from 2005-06.

Now, Hakeem Nicks is Manning’s back-shoulder target. Those two are good enough at it to make corners respect it, which is what the Cardinals’ Patrick Peterson was doing when Nicks blew past him on the 29-yard game-winning touchdown in Week 4.
“It looked like he beat him for 10 yards, but the DB was starting to kind of play the back shoulder,” Carr said. “When we first started throwing them you didn’t see guys doing that.”

No, because they’re getting better at it instead of accepting the “uncoverable” excuse.

Not surprisingly, Herm Edwards got a little animated when it was suggested the back-shoulder throw can’t be defended.

“You can defend it! Use the right technique!” said the former Jets and Kansas City Chiefs coach, one-time NFL defensive back and current ESPN analyst. “They might catch one or two, but you might knock one or two down, too. Don’t sit here and say, ‘We can’t defend it.’ Are you kidding me?

“If you think you can’t defend it as a corner, you need to get out of playing corner and go play safety.”

Okay, so how is it done? Edwards’ ESPN colleague Eric Mangini says it begins with the good jam and staying on top.

“If the fade doesn’t look good,” the former Jets and Browns coach said, “the only option is the back-shoulder throw.”

That pass will be delivered at about the 10-yard mark, so Mangini taught his corners to “slide to an even position” at this point and be “as flush to the receiver as possible.” In other words, no longer stay up top and be ready for both the fade and the fade stop.

“The other thing is with your hand, when you’re playing the receiver down the field for a defensive back, you really want to have your hand on his lower back,” Mangini said. “Not in a way that’s pass interference but when he breaks back, his momentum will carry the defensive back to the play.”

Edwards also suggests turning into the receiver, not away from him and toward the field of play.

“And then you have to have great hand-eye coordination. You have to be able to play what I call the basket,” Edwards said. “When the receiver gets ready to catch the ball, he forms a basket with his hands. You have to be able to either grab the basket with your hands or you gotta put your hand through the basket and try to get the ball out.”

Piece of cake. If you’re Darrelle Revis.

“He’s really good at the line. He beats up the wide receiver so there’s not a lot of clean releases,” Mangini said. “And he’s really good in getting into that flush position, plus he’s so strong that, as you’re running down the field, he’s constantly widening the receiver just by virtue of his body position. So now when you have the receiver a yard or two from the sideline it’s hard to complete any ball.”

That's nice, but the Giants don’t have Revis. They have Corey Webster and Aaron Ross on the outside. And they’d better not think about telling Fewell that Rodgers’ back-shoulder throws are uncoverable.

“I don’t buy that. I think you can defend a lot of routes,” Fewell said. “They’re very good at throwing the back-shoulder fade. (Rodgers’) timing has been impeccable.

“You know, you have to defend it. There are some ways to defend it, and we look forward to defending it.”